"Visual Culture" studies recognizes
the predominance of visual forms of
media, communication, and
information in the postmodern
world.
Has there been a social and cultural shift to the
visual, over against the verbal and textual, in
the past 50 years, and has it been
accelerating in the past 10 or 20 years?
Or are our written, textual, and visual systems
continuing an ongoing reconfiguration in a
new (recognizable) phase?
Study of visual culture merges popular
and "low" cultural forms, media and
communications, and the study of "high"
cultural forms or fine art, design, and
architecture.
The "visual culture" approach acknowledges
the reality of living in a world of crossmediation--our experience of culturally
meaningful visual content appears in
multiple forms, and visual content and codes
migrate from one form to another:
 print images and graphic design
 TV and cable TV
 film and video in all interfaces and playback/display
technologies
 computer interfaces and software design
 Internet/Web as a visual platform
 digital multimedia
 advertising in all media (a true cross-media institution)
 fine art and photography
 fashion
 architecture, design, and urban design
We learn the codes for each form and code switch
among the media and the "high" and "low" culture
forms. The experience of everyday life can be
described as code-switching or hacking the visual
codes around us to navigate and negotiate
meaning (see William Gibson, Pattern
Recognition).
WEEGEE (ARTHUR FELLIG), THEIR FIRST MURDER,
I1941
PIETER CLAESZ, STILL LIFE WITH
STONEWARE JUG, WINE GLASS,
HERRING, AND BREAD, 1642
RENÉ MAGRITTE, TREACHERY OF IMAGES, 1928-29
RENÉ MAGRITTE, THE HUMAN CONDITION, 1933